


blood makes noise

by untouchableface



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Inner Dialogue, Medical Jargon, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untouchableface/pseuds/untouchableface
Summary: A doctor's musing on the most incurable disease - love.





	blood makes noise

If Dana Scully ever bothered to count, she could easily come up with at least a thousand ways to kill a person.

Gunshots were easy, sometimes terrifyingly so. A well-placed bullet could either cause instant death or intense suffering that lasted for days if not weeks. Someone - like Melissa, who was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time - ultimately suffered far less than the people around her who prayed for her to heal. But a gunshot wound to the stomach, especially with the proper level of care, was a far less fatal outcome and even an untreated patient could potentially survive a few agonizing days, depending on what organs had or hadn’t been perforated. A shot to the knees would hurt like a bitch and often could wipe out mobility, all without being immediately fatal so long as no main blood vessels were knicked. Upper torso shots hurt too, and if they were cleanly in and out while missing organs like the heart and lungs, a victim could live long enough to suffer a whole fuck of a lot. Jamming one’s digits into the holes left by bullets was a whole new level of pain, and one she wasn’t necessarily against depending on circumstance. Scully was unquestionably a great shot, largely because of the countless hours she had put in at the academy, but guns always felt somehow impersonal to her, a last line of defence against something that was going to fuck you up in countless ways if you let it.

Poisons were a whole different category, and one she didn’t care to dwell too long on. Tell-tale needle marks under fingernails or between toes were usually what gave otherwise mysterious deaths away. Some acted quickly and cut off the brain’s supply of oxygen before the body knew what was happening. Some were excruciating, liquefying organs as the victim suffered. Most fell in between the two extremes, and at the very least came out somehow in the bloodwork she ordered, if they were looking for them or she pushed whatever random lab enough to get the results she knew she’d find. Some poisons were much slower-acting and came in friendly, non-lethal packaging like whiskey or wine or beer; sometimes that was enough to slow her pulse and her brain for an evening while she regained the more rational parts of herself .

And then there was immolation. If she were honest with herself, Scully had lost track of the amount of times that she had set herself on fire for Mulder, metaphorically speaking of course. But to this day he was afraid of fire and she was afraid of something equally destructive - his ability to consume all of her with just a glance or a word. Sometimes not even that much.

Back in their early days together, something as small and carelessly intimate as his hand on her arm could set her skin ablaze. A word, a plea, his hair falling over his eyes, it was enough to send her chasing after him into a remote forest or a missile silo or an apiary full of genetically-modified bees. If she were honest with herself, she should have been able to put the brakes on, full-stop. But asphyxiation was often a part of immolation; the simple art of passing out when there was no air to breathe while the fire and smoke lapped around you. And if she were honest with herself, she needed him more than she needed air.

She needed the rasp in his voice, she needed his clumsy weight on top of her. She needed his blind crusades, she needed his seemingly unwavering faith in her. Because if he was not there, and she were alone, all of the fire and smoke could be misconstrued as Hell. And that was a construct she was not ready to face on her own, especially not if she was suddenly alone in her beliefs after all she had seen.


End file.
